,v > 



V-S*?V V-^-> v '+«-*&■<, 



^ 










./^ 






/\ 



,o' 






^ 



■< 



O •'o.S « V 






^°^ 











<y 









o * . . ** A 









/v 

^ * . . o ' N \^ 









•^ cr 

c 



O ' . . s .'v 














^V 







■<?» rv v - o " o , *q 



0' 



•1 q. 













■\ 




r v. 



^q. 



o „ o ' C-> 



» -* 



V 













jt- *i 



O * e , ■ 




A - <J» " o „ - A 





.V.* ,.<b<P A-* 



J ^s 












OSAGE INDIAN LANDS. 



SPEECH 



ION. EDMUND G. ROSS, 

OF KANSAS, 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAY 5, 1870. 



The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the 
Whole, the consideration of the bill (S. No. 
529) to provide for the sale of the Great and 
Little Osage Indian reservation, in the State of 
Kansas, and for the settlement of said Indians 
in the Indian territory, the pending question 
being on the amendment proposed yesterday 
by Mr. Ross. 

The amendment was read, as follows : 
And be it farther enacted, That the Leavenworth, 
Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad Company, the 
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company, 
the Missouri, Fort Scott, and Santa Fe Railroad 
Company, the Union Pacific Railway Southern 
Branch Company, the Leavenworth and Topeka 
Railway Company, and the Lawrence and Neosho 
Valley Railroad Company, (corporations duly or- 
ganized under the laws of the State of Kansas,) 
shall have the right to purchase the aforementioned 
lands, except the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, 
reserved for school purposes, on the following terms 
and conditions, to wit : the Leavenworth, Lawrence, 
and Galveston Railroad Company, and the Atchi- 
son. Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad Company, may 
each purchase live sixteenths of said lands by each 
paying $31,250 in cash, and each executing and deliv- 
ering its bond for the further sum of $468,750; and 
the Missouri, Fort Scott, and Santa Fe Railroad 
Company, and the Lawrence and Neosho Valley 
Railroad Company may each purchase one eighth 
of said lands by each paying §12,500 in cash, and each 
executing and delivering its bond for the further 
sum of §187,500; and the Union Pacific Railway 
Southern Branch Company, and the Leavenworth 
and Topeka Railway Company may each purchase 
one sixteenth of said lands by each paying 86,250, 
and each executing and delivering its bond for the 
further sum of S l J3,750. Each of said companies shall 
make its said cash payment and execute and deliver 
its said bond to the Secretary of the Interior within 
ninety days from the passage of this act; and tho 
bond. of each company shall be for the payment of 
the sum named to the United States, in ten equal 
annual installments, with interest, payable annually, 
at the rate of five per cent, per annum, from thedato 
thereof; and if either of said companies shall fail to 
pay to the Secretary of the Interior in full said hand 
payment, or any part of the principal or interest of 
its bond, within thirty days from tho date when the 
same becomes due and payable, it shall not be entitled 
thereafter to receive any part of said lands or of the 
proceeds thereof, as hereinafter provided. Th«Leav- 
enworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad Com- 
pany shall, within three years from tho passage 
of this act, (or within one year after a railway 
bridge shall have been constructed across the Kan- 
sas river at or near Lawrence, for the use of said 



Leavenworth. Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad 
Company.) said company, its successors and assigns, 
shall construct, or permanently control for 
and operate a continuous line of railway from Fort 
Leavenworth to tho southern boundary of the State 
of Kansas, via Lawrence. The Atchison. Topeka, 
and Santa Fe Railroad Company shall, within twelve 
months from tho passage of this act, and each and 
every year thereafter, construct and equip twenty- 
five miles of its railroad from Topeka, via Emporia, 
crossing tho Arkansas river on the lands herein 
authorized to be sold, to the southern or I 
boundary of said lands, in the general direction of 
Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Lawrence and 
Valley Railroad Company shall, within eighteen 
months after the passage of this act, and each and 
every year thereafter, construct and equip twenty- 
five miles of its railroad from Lawrence in the direc- 
tion of Emporia until a junction with the Atchison, 
Topeka. and Santa Fe - railroad is made. The .Mis- 
souri, Fort Scott, and Santa Fc Railroad Companv 
shall, within eighteen months from the 
this act, and each and every year thereaii 
struct and equip twenty miles of its railroad, until 
its line is constructed and equipped from Fort Scott, 
Kansas, to a junction with a railroad running west- 
ward on the said lands. The Union Pacific Railway 
Southern Branch Company shall, within eighteen 
months from the passage of this act, construct and 
equip its railroad from Junction City or Fort Riley 
to its point of intersection with the line of the Leav- 
enworth, Lawrence, and Galveston railroad in tho 
Neosho valley. TheLcaveuworth and Topeka Kail- 
road Company shall, within eighteen months from 
tho passage of this act, and each and every year 
thereafter, construct and equip twenty-five mile- of 
its railroad from Leavenworth to Topeka, Kansas. 
And said railroad companies shall, after the con- 
struction of their said roads, or any part thereof, 
always transport for the United States all mails, 
troops, munitions of war, and supplies for tl 
for Indian tribes, a.t the same rates as are or may bo 
prescribed by law for similar transportation on the 
Union Pacific railroad. A failure on the part of 
either of said companies to construct any section of 
its line within tho time specified above shall work a 
forfeiture of allies rights under this act. except to 
lands patenteil to if as hereinafter provided, unless 
the President, with the advice and consent ol 
at e, lor, good cause shown, shall c msenl to an extension 
of such time. All persons being heads of famil 
citizens of the United States, or members of any tribe 
at peace with the United State-, who have BOtl 
any part of the said Osage reservation, and are at 
the date of the passage of this act residing ! 
as bonafide settlers, shall have the privilege, at any 
time within one year from the date hereof, ol pur- 
chasing from Hie United States one hundred and 
sixty acres, at si 25 per acre, to bo selected In 
pact body, according t<> legal subdivisions, und to 



include, as far as practicable, the improvements of 
each settler; all of said lands, except such as shall 
be purchased by settlers at $1 25 per acre, as herein- 
before provided, shall, in parcels, as may be neces- 
sary, be appraised after survey, subject to the ap- 
proval of the Secretary of the Interior, by three 
disinterested appraisers, to be appointed by him, who 
shall each be paid for services and expenses not ex- 
ceeding ten dollars per day, for the time actually and 
necessarily occupied in the duties of such appraise- 
ment; and any of said hinds not claimed by settlers 
may be reappraised, at the request .of the company or 
companies interested, at the expiration of every two 
years; Prdvided, That no timber land shall ever be 
appraised higher than $7 50 an acre; and no prairie 
land, lying within ten miles of the located line of 
either of said railroads, higher than live dollars an 
acre ; and no prairie land, lying more than ten miles 
from such located line, higher than §2 50 an acre. 
Whenever any section or sections of not less in all 
than t wen ty-five miles i )f either of said rail roads shall 
have been constructed and equipped, and notice 
thereofgivento the Secretary of the Interior, he shall 
ascertain by the report of three disinterested com- 
missioners, to be appointed by him, whether suchsec- 
tion is completed and equipped as a good and efficient 
railroad : and if satisfied of that fact he shall accept 
such section. Each of such commissioners shall be 
paid not more than ten dollars per day, and neces- 
sary traveling expenses during the time actually 
occupied in traveling to and from and inspecting 
such section. All expenses of such surveys, appraise- 
ments, and inspections shall be paid by the Secretary 
of the Interior out of the proceeds of sales of the 
lands to settlers, or out of the hand payment made 
by the said companies, and shall be appropriately 
charged to the respective companies, and reimbursed 
by I hem at the next payment of interest or principal 
of said bonds, or, when said bonds shall have been 
paid, shall be reimbursed from the proceeds of sales 
ill said lands to settlers. All of such lands except 
such as are settled upon and shall have been pur- 
chased as hereinbefore provided shall be and re- 
main, open to settlement, preemption, and pur- 
chase, as follows: any head of a family, haying 
made such settlement on said lands as is required 
of preemptors, may purchase, at the land office of 
the proper district, a quarter section, or less, in legal 
subdivisions, to include hi< improvements, by pay- 
ing one half of tho appraised value of the land 
claimed in cash, within one year from the date of 
; ach settlement, and the balance within one year 
after such first payment: Provided, That no such 
preemption or purchase shall include, more, than 
tOTty acres of timber land: And provided farther. 
That the lands of the reserve shall not be open to 
such settlement or preemption until after the date, 
to be fixed by the Secretary of the Interior, for tho 
selection by tho Osages of their lands in severalty, 
as hereinafter provided. The proceeds of all sales to 
settlers, alter deducting therefrom amounts charge- 
able to the said coin panics, Baall lie credited to them 
severally, pro rata, as pay men Is on the amounts next 
t hereafter falling due on the principal or interest of 
their respective bonds. When the whole of the bond 
and interest and proportion of expenses due from 
either of said railroad companies shall havo been 
fully and punctually paid as herein provided, and 
when the whole of the lines of railroad herein 
required to be built shall havo been completed, 
e [uipped, and accepted, as herein provided, the Sec- 
retary of the Interior hall cause to bo selected, re- 
served from sale and patented in e;ieh company, ils 
due proportion in average value of all the | 
herein authorized to be sold, which at that date re- 
main unsold tn settlers ; and shall also pay over to 
each company its proportion of any proce 
to ettlors remaining, or accruing, to its orodil 
it-; bond and interest ami expenses have been fully 
paid, as aforesaid: Provided, Thai no patent shall 
issue to any such company for anj land en which 

pa i I payment has been made by a settler, unless BUOh 

settler shall fail to make, final payment when due; 
and i he Secretary of the Interior, for good oause 
shown, may extend tho time tor linal payment by 



any settler: And provided 'further, That each patent 
issued to such company shall contain the condition 
that the lands therein conveyed shall be sold by said 
company within five years from the date thereof, 
and in default of such sale the lands so patented 
shall revert to the United States, to be sold in trust 
for the benefit of the Osages. And no patent shall 
issue to any grantee of such company. If cither or 
any number of said companies less than the whole 
shall forfeit its or their right of purchase, as hen . 
before provided, the other company, or either or ail 
of the other companies, which shall have performed 
all the requirements hereof, may, with the approval 
of the Secretary of the Interior, within sixty-days 
from the date of such forfeiture, (and notice thereof 
given by the Secretary of tho Interior to all of said 
companies,) assume all the obligations herein im- 
posed on the company or companies forfeiting, and 
he entitled to all the rights and privileges forfeited, 
subject to all the conditions herein prescribed. But in 
case such forfeiture occurs, and no other company is 
so admitted to the privileges forfeited, then the Sec- 
retary of the Interior shall sell the lands to which 
such company would have been entitled under tho 
previsions hereof to actual settlers, at such appraise- 
ment as he shall approve, and on the terms of pay- 
ment hereinbefore prescribed; and after deducting 
tho proportion of expenses of survey and appraise- 
ment which would have been otherwise chargeable 
to such company, shall invest tho proceeds for tho 
benefit of the Osages, as hereinbefore provided. If 
either of said companies shall consolidate with, or 
assign its franchises to, any other company legally 
authorized to construct the line of railroad herein 
required to be built by it, such other company shall 
be subrogated to all the rights and obligations under 
this act of such company herein named: Ami pro- 
vided aho, That the said Osage Indians shall have 
the right to select lands in severalty on the said res- 
ervation, not theretofore selected and occupied by 
settlers, to the extent of one bundled and sixty acres 
for each head of a family, and eighty acres each for 
all other persons, belonging to the said tribe, and 
the samcshall be patented to the person so selecting, 
or to his or her guardian, if a minor or incompetent, 
the lands so selected and patented to be inalienable, 
except by the consent of the President. All moneys 
paid to the United States for the said lands shall be 
applied on the baud payments herein required, to 
the credit of the several companies signifying their 
acceptance of these propositions, and iu the propor- 
tions hereinbefore indicated, 

Mr. ROSS. Mr. President, it is now two 
years that this proposition has been pending 
before the Senate. During that time a degree 
of prejudice has been excited against it which 
was probably never before created against a 
merely local measure. It is not necessary .to 
inquire into the motives which instigated the 
crusade that has been waged, but it is sufficient 
at this time to state that that criticism and 
prejudice are the result of an entire misappre- 
hension of the facts in relation to it, and I 
shall ask the indulgence of the Senate for a 
few moments lo state as briefly and succinctly 
as I may, what those facts are. 

In the first place, this amendment proposes 
to authorize certain railroad corporations in 
the State of Kansas to purchase, ostensibly, 
eight million acres of Indian lands in that 
Slate at. twenty cents per acre, but in reality 
about seven million acres at about twenty-five 
cents, as five hundred thousand acres are re- 
served forBchool purposes, and aboutas much 
incre fur the' benefit and occupancy of the 
Indians, in addition to the expenses of ap- 



praisement, survey, &c, which have to be paid 
by the purchaser. 

The corporations proposing to purchase are 
six in number, are all living organizations, 
chartered under the laws of the Suite, three 
of them now under rapid process of construe- | 
tion. and aggregating altogether seven hundred 
arid fifty miles of railroad within the State. 
With this endowment these seven hundred and 
fifty miles of railroad will all be completed 
probably within two, and certainly within three 
years from the passage of this act. The amend- 
ment is intended to be so framed as to secure 
the construction of every mile of these respect- 
ive roads, and not an acre passes iuto their 
hands until completion. 

On these lands there are less than four thou- 
sand Indians. They insist that they have long 
since sold their lands, and all they now want 
is their money. I know it has been asserted 
that thev are dissatisfied with the sale, and ask 
that it be not ratified ; but I also know, from 
the official records of the Interior Department, 
and from personal intercourse with many of 
them, that it is not true. 

A most unreasonable and exaggerated idea 
exists in regard to the value of these lands. 
It is true that this tract comprises as beautiful 
and fertile lands as can be found anywhere in 
the West ; but it is also true that this consti- 
tutes but a limited portion of the whole, whde 
the great bulk of the reservation is of an infe- 
rior quality. If there is such a place as the 
great American desert, it is in the southwest- 
ern part of Kansas and the northwestern part 
of the Indian territory. Vast portions of it 
are nothing but dry, barren, sandy_ plains, 
utterly destitute of both water and fuel, the 
land alkaline and the water brackish. This I 
know to be its character, for I have seen it. I 
am confident, too, that there is not a capitalist 
in the country who would pay this price for it, 
unless he had the means and intended to con- 
struct internal improvements to or through it, 
which would bring it within the reach of civil- 
ization and of markets ; for only in this way 
could he ever expect a return of his invest- 
ment. 

The Indians are provided with a liberal allow- 
ance of land for homes in severalty, wherever 
they choose to take it within the reservation, 
where the money they receive for the surplus 
may be applied with some hope of success for 
their civilization and improvement, and the 
Government relieved from the annual appro- 
priations which we now have to make for their 
eare. , 

There are some twenty or thirty thousand 
white settlers now on the lands. They have 
gone there generally with the consent of the 
Indians, in most cases paying them royalty 
for the use of their lands until their sale could 
be ratified by Congress. These people have 
of course taken up all the best of the lands, 



and by this amendment they are guarantied 
the right to purchase their the min- 

imum price of public lands. Th - not 

settled on at this date, and comprising all 
poorest part of the reservation and none of i 
best, is to be appraised by Government ap- 
praisers, and the maximum of that is li.v I 
according to quality and contiguity to 
roads. After appraisement the lauds are open 
to all to settle upon and purchase at the ap- 
praised value as freely as upon any part of the 
public domain. 

Another noticeable feature, and one which 
ought to commend the bill to those who profess 
a desire to aid the construction of railroads, 
but fear the effect of investing titles to large 
tracts of lands in corporations, is thai 
roads do not get title to an acre of land until 
they are completed. During all the time em- 
ployed in their construction the lands are open 
to preemption and settlement, the same as pub- 
lic lands. Following up and even preceding 
the construction of the roads, as settlements 
inevitably will, there will at that time be but 
little if any valuable lands left, nothingbut the 
sterile sand batiks, to fall into the hands of the 
corporations, and even these they must dispose 
of within five years of the completion of their 
roads, or forfeit them, to be sold for the beuelit 
of the Indians. 

Great stress has been laid by the opponents 
of this scheme upon the assumed impropriety 
of selling great tracts of land to corporations. 
It is claimed that they should be reserved for 
future generations of the landless poor. The 
meaning of that, in brief, is that they should 
be reserved for haunts for the buffalo ami the 
savage; that they should be preserved as lurk- 
ing places from which a vengeful foe to civil- 
ization can spring upon the defenseless sett ie- 
ments of the pioneer, burn his cabin, drive 
his stock, murder him. and take captive his 
women and children. That is what it amounts 
to, and nothing else. Of what use will they 
be to the coming generations of landless poor, 
or to anvbody else, with such incumbrances as 
that? How else are you going to bring these 
great interior plains within the bounds i 
ilization and development but by the influence 
of internal improvements? And how else are 
you going to secure those internal improve- 
ments but by offering reasonable inducements 
to capitalists to invest their money in ti: 
struction of those improvements? W he 
ference does it make to the Government what 
becomes of these lands so long as the rights ol 
its wards and its citizens are protected? It 
does, however, make this difference to us: t he 
adoption of this amendment will, within the 
next ten years, create $1,000,000,1 
where nowis nothing buta barren sand I 
1,000,000 of wealth, more than w 
evolved In forty years - 

!,, communities ol' comparatively recenl 



origin, like those of the West, with but little 
money, but an abundance of land, we have no 
means within our reach so effective for the 
construction of railroads, and consequently in 
stimulating development and promoting the 
general prosperity, as the appropriation of; 
lands. As appears upon the face of the prop- 
osition, it takes nothingfrom the Government, 
but actually adds to its resources, by opening 
up sources of production which do not now 
exist, and which can never be developed but 
by the construction of railroads. It works no 
hardship to the settler, but directly the reverse, 
because in paying the increased price required 
for his home, he buys with a certainty that 
within a reasonable time he will be furnished 
a remunerative market at his door for every 
pound of vegetable and animal product of his 
land, with the additional advantage of the 
certain advance, far beyond its cost, of his 
homestead whenever he desires to sell it. 

So apparent and well understood is this that 
in nine cases out of ten of inquiries at the local 
land offices and elsewhere for eligible locations 
upon the public lands, almost the first question 
asked is whether they will be within the reach 
of projected lines of railroad. It is also proven 
by the experience of every land-endowed rail- 
road company in the West. Not less than seven 
hundred thousand acres of railroad lands in my 
own State have been sold to immigrants within 
the last three years, in many cases at enhanced 
prices, simply because they were within reach 
of these improved means of communication. 
The immigrant prefers these rather than go 
out upon the public domain, away from schools, 
churches, and society, where lands could be 
had at one quarter or one tenth the price. lie 
has been content to pay more if necessary and 
own correspondingly less land, and remain 
where he can send his children to school, enjoy 
the benefits of society, and, above all, have a 
market at his door for all he has to sell. 

This one substantial fact is worth more than 
all the theorizing of the. opponents of land sub- 
sidies to railroads, and demonstrates in a most 
practical and convincing manner, the wisdom 
and beneficence of the system which our Gov- 
ernment has adopted. To the State, also, this 
system of appropriating lands is a great gain, 
because the construction of every mile of road 
within its borders increases directly to the 
amount of its cost, the aggregate of its taxable 
property, which is also still farther increased 
in an endless ratio by the additional attraction 
to immigration and consequent increased pro- 
duction; so that, instead of any being losers, 
all are gainers. 

The time was when we might look for prosper- 
ity and development in the distant and isolated 
regions of the interior, when the stage- coach 
and i he Hal boal ul d the wants of com- 

merce and furnished ample means of trade and 
communication. 1 > u t. thai lime has gom by, 



and cities cannot now be successfully built or 
farms profitably cultivated away from the great 
arteries of commerce and of thought afforded 
by the railroad and the telegraph. 

Perhaps as signal an instance as any to be 
found of the beneficent influence of the land- 
grant system, long since wisely adopted by the 
Government, is in the State of Kansas. We 
have in that State completed, and projected with 
a certainty of completion, some three thousand 
miles of railway, nearly all of which is aided, 
and all of which is largely stimulated by grants 
of land. One thousand miles of these roads 
are now in operation, costing an aggregate of 
§20,000,000 for construction and many millions 
more for stocking. 

Contrary to the received idea of that country, 
capitalists and railroad builders found there a 
region which needed only the developing power 
of the railroad to make it what it has since 
proven to be, the most productive spot on the 
continent for grains and fruits and vegetables. 
The result has been that where sixteen years 
ago, there was not a white man living, or ten 
years ago, at the admission of that State into 
the Union, when there were but one hundred 
and seven thousand white people, we have 
to-day six hundred thousand people, and a 
population increasing at the rate of two thou- 
sand a day. During the last year our contri- 
butions to the support of the Government have 
increased three hundred per cent. ; and that 
contribution is rapidly increasing from month 
to month. It is a remarkable fact, too, that 
this great increase both of people and of 
wealth, is confined to the localities which are 
or are certain soon to be penetrated by rail- 
roads. At least two thirds of this vast influx 
are seeking homes on lands comprised within 
the railroad withdrawals. They appreciate 
the importance and value of the proximity of 
railroads ; and while the3 r can go anywhere 
upon the public lauds, and take a homestead 
for the asking, they prefer to pay the prices 
they do and remain within the limits of trade 
and civilization. 

it will not be denied that no way has yet 
been devised so promotive of the settlement 
and improvement of the West as the reason- 
able appropriation oi' its lands to the building 
of railroads. It is not alone the lands that are 
traversed that are benefited ; but the initial and 
terminal points also, far removed from them, 
are made important centers of trade and trans- 
portation; and their citizens, together with the 
people on the otherwise worthless lands of the 
interior, are made rich and prosperous. New 
") ork and Boston, as well as San Francisco 
and Portland, are thus directly benefited by the 
construction of these interior lines. 

The value of every man's farm on either Bide 
of a railroad is al once immensely enhanced. 
Immigration is attracted, and all lands open to 

Btstth men! in the vicinily are rapid ly taken up. 



The increased means of transportation prac- 
tically bring the consumer of the East to the 
door of the producer in the West.' Schools and 
churches are established and maintained where, 
before the advent of the railroad, settlements 
were too sparse and poor to admit of these 
peculiar indices of prosperity and progress. 
Society is increased, strengthened, and im- 
proved, and the political importance of the 
State is augmented by every vote that is se- 
cured by the added facilities for business and 
for comfortable living afforded by railroads. 

It is in this way that the railroads give the 
lands to the Government instead of the Gov- 
ernment giving them to the railroads, by giving 
them value and making them attractive to 
immigration and productive of wealth and rev- 
enue. The disposition of the public domain is 
largely a question of dollars and cents to the 
country — a question as to how much shall be 
realized out of them. As a source of cash 
revenue it has long since been conceded that 
nothing is or can be realized directly from their 
sale by the Government; that the $1 25 per 
acre received for them as an item of revenue 
is so insignificant as to be unworthy of con- 
sideration ; that the return to be anticipated 
from their sale is in their development and the 
production from them of taxable property, and 
not in the price per acre received for them. 

The great bulk of the public lands are hun- 
dreds of miles from railroad communication, 
and consequently that distance from market. 
Suppose the settler goes out and takes a 
homestead, getting his land for comparatively 
nothing. It is inevitable that in the absence of 
liberal grants of lands he must remain there 
many years before railroad communication will 
be much nearer to him than now. In the 
meau time he is fortunate, and succeeds in 
raisingabundantcrops of grain, and vegetables, 
and stock. His neighbors are, like himself, 
producers and not consumers. The country is 
sparsely settled, because there are no unusual 
facilities for transportation and trade, and 
nothing, in the absence of railroads, to con- 
centrate settlements and build up towns. His 
produce is a drug in his own neighborhood and 
region of country because of the absence of 
towns, and consequently of consumers. When 
his crops mature and the marketing season of 
the year comes round, he has therefore to load 
them into his wagon and carry them these hun- 
dreds of miles before he can sell them at 
anything like the ruling rates of the markets. 
It takes him a week or more to reach that 
market, and nearly as long to return. Who 
cannot see that the necessary outlay of teams, 
of money, and of time, and especially of the 
latter, if properly valued, would leave the 
farmer a very small dividend, or rather none 
at all, at the end of the round trip? He would 
return creditor to his farm if not in debt to his 
grocer. How many men would go out upon 



the public lands in this age of railroad develop- 
ment, with the prospect before them of an in- 
definite continuance of this state of thin. [| 
cannot be said that the rapid development of 
the West disproves this theory, for not one in 
ten of the immigrants to the West have gone 
there but in the confident expectation of in a 
few years enjoying all the benefits of near rail- 
road communication and the advantages of a 
close market. 

As a single illustration of this fact, scarcely 
were the settlements organized in the valley of 
the Kansas river before the agitation of the 
proposition to make that the route of the Pa- 
cific railroad was commenced, and it was largely 
the confidence which was felt even at thai 
day, that the project would ultimately succeed, 
that attracted and retained the two hundred 
thousand people now in that valley. This is 
my observation and experience ; and the same 
considerations will apply with equal force to 
all parts of the West, proving that it is abso- 
lutely cheaper and better for the frontiersman 
to pay the enhanced value given to his lands 
by the presence of railroads than to take them 
for nothing and remain long distances from 
communication and markets. 

Settlers do not go upon lands to which there 
is in their judgment no probability of the ex- 
tension of railways. There are now open to 
settlement in the West, under the homestead 
law, millions of acres of the finest lands that 
lie under the sun, which the Government is 
begging the poor of the country to take as a 
gift, across which a stream of emigration is 
daily pouring, seeking more distant and no 
better lands, simply for the purpose of getting 
within reach of railroads, or rather of secur- 
ing locations where railroads will be sure to 
come at no very remote day. 

It must be clear to every one that out upon 
the great plains of the West, far removed from 
market, devoid of water communication, and 
scant of fuel, the progress of settlement mast 
be exceedingly slow unless there be a reason- 
able expectation of a remedy for these dis- 
abilities, by a timely provision of better means 
of transportation than they now have. That 
remedy consists in the construction of railroads. 
Suppose we cause by the appropriation of lands 
the construction of roads across and through 
these plains. We cause at the same time the 
building of innumerable towns and cities, and 
a concentration of business and capital. Every 
settler upon them will be brought within an 
easy day's drive of a station and a market. 
He saves his weeks of time in getting to ami 
from a market. He avoids the necessity of 
large investments in teams, and more than all, 
he receives at his door for his load of produce 
a price approximating if not equal to thai "t 
the East. 

Who does not see that that region, in large 
part now barren and desolate, becomes at once 



G 



a desirable country to live in? Under this 
stimulus hundreds of thousands of the people 
of the East are silently wending their way to it, 
to possess and enjoy their share of the benefits 
to be derived from this appropriation of the 
public lands. Who does not see, too, that this 
increase of production and accumulation of 
property adds directly to the volume of national 
wealth and the enlargement of the sources of 
national revenue? And who does not see, too, 
that this development in Kansas directly tends 
to reduce taxation in Massachusetts as well? 
So that in this way, and this only, can these 
lands be made productive of good to all the 
people, and not to corporations and localities 
merely. The corporations purchasing these 
lands propose to enhance their value by im- 
proving them ; and the terms of the sale rigidly 
guaranty that improvement. They propose to 
expend many millions of money upon them 
in this improvement, and having made that 
immense outlay in redeeming what will other- 
wise remain a barren waste until long after this 
generation shall have passed away, who would 
deny them an adequate, even a munificent, re- 
turn upon their investment? 

Suppose a corporation of individuals pur- 
chase a swamp in the vicinity of this city, and 
expend large sums of money in filling it up and 
making it habitable for the purposes of produc- 
tion and trade — would it be right to say that 
those who have thus expended their means in 
enhancing the value of their property and in- 
creasing the wealth of the community should 
receive no adequate return upon their invest- 
ment of time and money? This is a parallel 
case. Here is a region of country far removed 
from civilization, effectually sealed up against 
settlement and development in the absence of 
railroads, and can only be made habitable and 
inviting to the farmer, the artisan, and the 
merchant, by the construction of these artificial 
means of communication and trade. Much of 
it is literally a barren waste of sand, and utterly 
valueless, except as it may be brought into 
proximity to valuable internal improvements. 

If these corporations expend their money in 
making it habitable and attractive, thus adding 
millions upon millions, to the wealth of the 
country, where is the justice of estopping them 
from the sale of the lands whose value they 
have thus enhanced, at prices at least approx- 
imating a lair return? And where is the wrong 
to anybody — the Indian, the settler, or the 
< rovernment '.' Capital is hesitant about engag- 
ing actively in tlmse improvements until this. 
our almost only resource, can be safely pledged. 
It is useless to aver that railroads will be built 
as fast as the country needs them without this 
encouragement, I hat we now have already pro- 
I all tin' railroads we need, an 1 that these 
arc sure to be built whether they have the aid 
of the: e lands or not. 'I hat is all true : but the 
yOUllg tiM'ii of tO-day do not want to wait until 



they are gray-haired before they can enjoy the 
commercial advantages which these roads will 
give them. 'Their fathers before them tried 
that and found it a poor investment of time. 
Each generation lives essentially for itself, and 
it is the duty of each for itself and for its own 
good, to seek the highest possible stage of 
development, and not leave for the next what 
can and should be done within and for itself. 
We want, and the country needs these railroads 
now, and we can have them and wrong nobody, 
but rather benefit everybody, by the plan I pro- 
pose. 

We have been admonished, in the course of 
the debates on this subject, that we are but 
hastening a conflict between railroad corpor- 
ations and the people ; that the time is coming, 
to quote the words of gentlemen, " when these 
corporations will be our masters." Let me 
admonish gentlemen, in turn, that there are 
better ways of averting that danger, if any such 
exist, than by stopping the construction of rail- 
ways; better ways of averting the evil, if there 
be grounds for its apprehension, than by per- 
mitting our vast interior to remain the undis- 
turbed haunt of thieving savages instead of 
planting upon it the ilag of civilization and pro- 
gress. When that danger comes, if it ever 
does, I have no fear that there will not be vir- 
tue and independence in the people sufficient 
to devise effective means for the correction of 
the evil. This generation wants the roads, and 
the next will be quite as competent to take care 
of itself as we ourselves have been to take care 
of this. It is folly to deny ourselves a sub- 
stantial good for fear our children may not 
know how to use and control it. 

Mr. President, it is objected to the appro- 
priation of lands to railroads that it creates 
great landed monopolies of the corporations 
receiving them ; that they tie up and withdraw 
from settlement the hinds of the nation, which 
should be held open for the benefit and occu- 
pation of those who are to come after us. It 
is usually true of those who make this criti- 
cism that they are great admirers, and justly, 
too, I think, of the beneficent public-land sys- 
tem which has so long been adopted by the 
Government. Now, what has been the prac- 
tical working of that system ? In the west- 
ern States many million acres of the public 
lauds have been purchased and obtained even 
by preemption, in large tracts, by a few indi- 
viduals, and held without any improvement 
whatever for purely speculative purposes, the 
holders waiting for the settlement and develop- 
ment of contiguous lands to enhance the value 
of their own. Here is a monopoly as great as 
that <>!' which gentlemen complain on the part 
of railroad corporations, and far worse in its 
effects, because those contribute nothing to the 
improvement of their own or their neighbors' 
lands, while the railroad contributes largely to 
bol ll, N i et do we bear any outcry against this 



B*> 14 b 



absorption of the public lands in the hands of 
non-improving speculators? Not at all. That 
is all reserved for those who spend their money 
by the million in giving value to their own and 
their neighbors' property. 

There is another source of land monopoly, 
under the guise of a benevolent gratitude, 
which has been largely practiced in this coun- 
try. We are told, in the reports of the Com- 
missioner of the Geueral Land Office, that 
seventy-five million acres of the public lands 
have been appropriated to the satisfaction of 
soldiers' land warrants. Seventy-one million 
acres of those warrants have been laid upon 
the public lands. By whom were they laid ? 
The Commissioner tells us that not one in 
five hundred of those acres has been entered 
by the soldiers to whom the warrants were 
issued. 

It will be remembered that immediately at 
the close of t lie Mexican war these warrants, 
or the right to draw them, were sold at New 
Orleans, by the soldiers returning from Mex- 
ico, by the thousand, at from sixteen to twenty- 
five dollars each. Speculators swarmed in 
that city to gather up these warrants, after- 
ward to lay them upon immense tracts of the 
public lands and hold them for speculation 
against those seeking homes upon the public 
domain. A few years ago an act of Congress 
authorized the issuance often million acres of 
college scrip, to be also passed into the hands 
of speculators, as it largely has, and at almost 
nominal rates. 

Congress has appropriated up to this time 
fifty-eight million acres of land to aid in the 
construction of railroads to the fourteen States 
of Illiuois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Min- 



nesota, Missouri, Kansas, California, Oregon, 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 
and Florida. These grants have secured the 
construction (and it could not have been se- 
cured otherwise) of seventeen thousand miles 
| of railroad in those States, exclusive of the 
thousand five hundred miles of Pacific railway, 
and created directly by their influence many 
thousand millions of public and private wealth. 
Yet in contrast to this titty-eight million acres 
so appropriated, with such incomparable re- 
sults, we have, bythe Commissioner's report, 
eighty million acres given away in the form of 
soldiers' bounty and college scrip, and thrown 
almost wholly into the pockets, not of soul- 
less corporations, as they are sometimes de- 
risively termed, who expend many times the 
original value of the lands in making them 
habitable and valuable, but into the pockets 
of the land speculator, to encourage and build 
up that most disastrous of all monopolies to 
the West, the private land monopoly. If we 
are to have any monopoly in lands, I certainly 
prefer that one which develops and enriches 
the country to that one which degrades and 
impoverishes it. 

But I do not concede that the granting of 
lands for building railroads in any real sense 
creates monopoly. Railroads cannot exist 
where there is no production, and there can be 
no production where there are not communities 
of enterprising and industrious people. It, is 
therefore imperative that they should sell their 
lands at reasonable rates and thus encourage 
settlement and production. To state the case 
is to prove it, and it is proven in the practice of 
nearly if not quite every laud-endowed railroad 
in the West. 



Printed at the Office of the Congressional Globe. 








r* 





^ "J 

»"V « • o i. 







'o K 



^ 



'^, 







f v 



*. 




0* 






/\ 






++J 




v0v%. 




,v 



V *'■ 



& 



vv 



i>«* 

^ ^ 






bV" 






0^ 



a\ 



■\ 











V .vLVC 



•S^ r 






•\ 






<, 









^ 




o • -» o 
C 




CV 

















^ V a • "••"<>. " ' o^" . t • . „ ^o 



:-X/ %-o^ "%^ 



i0-A 






,0t-, 







^rf 

















4°^ 



***** 





I'- V* 




















^ 



< 








i\ 



•\ 



o V 



*$■ ■<£■ 



e 




C, vP 



* A V ^ 

** ^ 



A 



^ 



R-. ^0^ 




^°^ 










doeb: bp.os. 

LIBRARY BINOSMO 






vP V 



■W 



o 



ST. AUGUSTINE „ ^ 



Z ; > s ^ V \ ^ ^ '-. 



O 



*>^ v"^ /^^s_ FLA- \» ■+, V 
10^.^^32084 J 






x ^ 




